My Testamony

 I am a sex addict. My story isn’t really that sad. On the other hand it isn’t really that exciting either. My story is exactly what it is. There is no more or less to be said. It is the truth. In fact as I write this I am going to be faced with all the truth for the first time in a while, if not ever. At the moment I am a bit down and tired, maybe even a little depressed. I’m tired of feeling bad, and I’m tired of hearing how wrong I have been. I know what I have done is wrong. I have sinned against myself, my family, my wife, and God. There is no penance for what I have done. There is no amount of hail Marys that can free me from this. The only thing I can do is repent of my sins; ask for forgiveness from God, my wife, and myself. The last one is the hardest.

Growing up I was not the special kid. I was the youngest of two and my sister was about six years older. One of my youngest sexual memories is hiding in my closet and trying to scratch a small hole in the wall. The wall was shared with my sister’s room. For some reason I felt I needed to watch her undress. But as best as I can remember I do not believe I ever did and I kind of feel it was more out of curiosity than anything else.

Getting older I began to become more aware of my body. The first time I masturbated I was in the family room in the basement. I had decided to pretend to be a naked airline pilot. Somehow I rubbed myself against a pillow and it gave me a strange sensation. After a minute or two I experienced my first ejaculation. I had no idea what it was, but it had felt good. I never talked to my parents about it. I don’t know if they ever knew.

My family was very religious. We were non-denominational Christians. We went to church every Sunday, and I attended a Baptist school from Kindergarten through 8^th grade. So I had been raised that sex was a bad thing. So not only did I not tell my parents, I didn’t ask anyone questions about it. I started to get excited about having the house to myself and heading to the basement to rub up against the pillows. I felt so alive.

I soon discovered porn. I saw my first Playboy at a friend’s house. He had it hiding under the bed. It was so exciting to see. In fact the first girl I ever saw naked was his mom. Well sort of. I remember sitting on his couch watching TV. I glanced down the hall for a second, and his mom was in her room changing with the door open. I couldn’t see her directly, but there was a full length mirror on her door. I even think she looked at me. I used to fantasize about her seducing me.

I had even found porn on the computer. This was before the internet. So you would have to go to different BBS (Bulletin Board Services). You would get a newspaper from the store that had different phone numbers. Each phone number was a BBS. Each number was like a webpage without pictures. To go to another page you would have to hang up the modem and call another number. What I had found out was that some of the BBS pages had pictures you could download. I remember sitting in a chair waiting for my 14.4 baud modem to take about three minutes to load up a single picture. I remember that the program I used to view pictures would exit immediately if you hit the Esc key. I would sit with my hand hovering over the Esc key while listening for any sign of movement upstairs. Even though I knew it was wrong, I felt an excitement that I started getting hooked on.

Soon I found that pictures on the computer weren’t enough and I moved on to video. I discovered that there were adult channels on the TV. Granted the movies were scrambled. But I could hear the audio, and would sit on the coffee table hoping to catch a glimpse of something between the wavy lines.  I would sit on the coffee table because I could change the channel quick if I heard any noise upstairs. Again I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t help myself.

I found myself hoping for some time alone in the house. As soon as the car would leave the driveway, I would find myself in front of the computer or the TV. I started having a conscience about what I was doing. It would get to the point that I truly felt that if I masturbated, that God would punish me. I would think of something good that I wanted to happen, and when it didn’t happen I knew that it was God’s judgment. I didn’t know it then, but it was a trend I was going to repeat for a long time.

My first sexual experience with a girl was when I was about fourteen. I was at my girlfriend’s house and we were making out in her bedroom. We didn’t have sex, but third base was reached. I felt guilty afterwards, and thought that God was going to punish me, so I broke up with her.

I was sexually abused by my piano teacher when I was 15. He would always sit next to me on the bench while I played. He would also always have his hand on my leg. I didn’t like it, and even talked to my dad about it. My dad was also taking piano lessons from him, and told me that the teacher did it to him too. I was weirded out by it, but I thought if my dad could deal with it, so could I. The day of the abuse I could remember very vividly. It is one of my most vivid memories. I can remember how trashed his hole in the wall studio was. It reeked of stale cigarettes, and bad coffee. I can almost still smell it. I was sitting at the piano playing, and I remember I was wearing shorts. He, like always, had his hand on my leg. He never had steady hands, but I remember they were very shaky that day. He started to move his hand up my leg. He would move a bit, then stop, then move a bit more. I was very aware of it, but I kept on playing. Until his hand was under my shorts and touching me, I never thought anything like this would ever happen. But as it did, I felt weak and helpless. I didn’t know what to do. I continued to play, as best as I could. I remember thinking; well I am getting the sexual attention I am looking for. I could just keep quiet and let him take advantage of me. I thought at least maybe I could get off. Then I thought about God, and how I was raised to believe that Gay people were bad people. I finally came to my senses when the lesson was over. The entire abuse only lasted about ten minutes, but it felt like a lifetime. I stood up, grabbed my books, and left. I remember that he tried to say something to me, but I never heard it. I raced out and ran all the way home. My mom could tell something was wrong. I remember crying on my parent’s bed, and telling both my mom and dad that I didn’t want to take piano lessons again. They asked me what happened, and I couldn’t tell them. I felt so ashamed of what happened, and also for the thoughts I had about it. Finally my mom asked me if he had touched me, and I said yes. I remember mom and dad yelling, and I thought they were mad at me first, until my dad left and my mom held me. We never told anyone about the abuse. It turns out that I wasn’t the only one, and a few of them spoke out and the teacher went to jail. This is a hard situation for me. One because I am upset that he would do that to a kid, but on the other had being in SAA, I understand the addiction.

I became very scarred of sex. I didn’t want to get a disease or even worse get someone pregnant. Throughout the next few years, I dated wanting to be intimate with a girl, and when it came down to it I would run away. I lost my virginity when I was sixteen. It was in the back seat of my mom’s car. We went to a park while it was raining. Afterwards I was overwhelmed with shame, and broke up with her the next day. I was also her first.

My next girlfriend I broke up with because she didn’t want to have sex. After about six months, which is a long time for a teenage relationship, I ended it. Her dad had given her a promise ring as a sign of celibacy. How could I have ever tried to take that away from her? I’m glad I never did.

After I got my driver’s license I became a taxi for all my friends. Most of my friends were girls, and I would do anything for them. I only had a few friends then because I got picked on a lot growing up, and I didn’t deal with it well. All I wanted was to love them, and have the girls love me back. I would have fantasies about them, when I was alone. I couldn’t have a female friend that I wasn’t trying to quietly find a way to have sex with them. I knew that it would make me feel bad, and we would not be friends anymore, but I didn’t care about that. I felt that since I would help them out, then I was entitled to what I wanted. Luckily God didn’t give me much of a physical nature, and he gave me strong conscience of what was legal and illegal, so I never crossed that line. Another thing that God blessed me with was a desire for older girls, and bigger girls. It might not sound like a blessing, but throughout my blindness of addiction it kept me from becoming a pedophile.  That is something I thank God every day for. The only problem was that I had a very low self esteem and couldn’t deal with peer pressure very well. That is also something that I still struggle with. Because of peer pressure I felt like it was a bad thing to like bigger girls. I would date them until I couldn’t handle being picked on anymore, and turn around and break up with them. Mostly I was thinking that because I got one girl to go out with me, then there would be another. That never worked out as I planned it.

At age 18 I decided to join the Navy. At the time I was a senior in High School and a computer tech at a local computer shop. At this time computers were not cool. Again I was doing something that I liked, but was always made fun of. Before I left for boot camp I had met this girl. I will call her S. S and I got along very well. We liked the same things, and she was beautiful. But of course she was a bigger girl, and I was ashamed. When I left for boot camp, I told her I would write her. She would write me letters and ask how things were going. I was so happy to get them. But in my own head I didn’t want to admit to anyone that I had a fat girl waiting for me. I never wrote a response back to her, and soon she stopped sending letters. I came home after boot camp, and I was on my way to San Diego. I got in contact with S, and lied to her and told her that I had sent letters, and they had all gotten returned. She took me back, and we hung out for the two weeks I was home. When I got to San Diego, I completely forgot about S. I figured she would find someone who lived there. I never knew the consequences of my actions, until I was laid up in a hospital bed from a bad foot injury. I was going through my address book calling people. I was so alone in that bed. All my family was half way across the country, and I had been flown off my ship out of Hong Kong back to the states for surgery. I saw her name and number to her dorm. I called a couple times without a response. I was very depressed, and felt so alone. I finally got a hold of her, and I told her what had happened to me and that I was so sorry for what I had caused her. She said that she was done crying over me, and that she was sorry I got hurt, but she didn’t want to talk to me anymore. I remember this being one of the loneliest times in my life.

At this time in my life I had forgotten about God, but thank God that He never forgot about me. I was spending my paycheck faster than I could get it. Until I turned 21 we would go down to Tijuana to drink and go to strip clubs. One time down in Tijuana I can very much remember how God saved me, even if I didn’t know it at the time. I was with a buddy at a strip club, and I had spent all my money. So I asked one of the guys who worked there if there was an ATM around. So he went to show me where one was down the street. I remember crossing the street and looking at the ATM, and thought how bad of an idea this was. The guy from the strip club was still with me trying to get me to go inside the ATM booth. I decided I was done and wanted to go back to the ship. I told the guy I had just remembered that I didn’t have any money and went back to the club. I grabbed my friend and we left. It could have been nothing, but later I heard that there was an operation in Tijuana where they would jump sailors at the ATM and empty their accounts.

My relationships while I was on the ship weren’t any better. My best friend on the ship was dating a girl. He wanted to break up with her, so he asked me to do it. So as a good friend I did. She was upset and wanted to go down to Tijuana to drink. We weren’t allowed to go down there alone. She asked me to go with her. I went down to comfort her, and to talk to her. She started drinking, took some ecstasy, and we ended up having sex in a hotel room in Tijuana. The room cost $17 a day. There was no bathroom in the room, and the locks on the door didn’t work. When I got back to the ship I confessed to my friend what I had done, and told him I never had any intention to do something like that. He was mad for awhile, but soon had forgiven me.

The girl and I started dating for awhile until one night when I caught her cheating on me. I found her on top of another guy in our hotel room, again in Tijuana. She tried to tell me later that she was raped, but I didn’t believe her. A few weeks later she told me she was pregnant, and that it was mine. I was 19 at the time and scarred. I didn’t know how to tell my parents, and didn’t even think that she might be lying to me. When I realized it and confronted her, she said she didn’t really know whose it was. I told her that I would be there for her and take care of her and the baby. The next day she was with someone else.

After dating a couple more people I met the girl who became my first wife. We were married in 2002 and divorced by 2005. We had a cold relationship. She rarely wanted to have sex, and looking back she always seemed to want to hang out with other people instead of me. My ship made a port visit in Santa Barbara CA, and while I was out with the guys I met this girl. She listened to me and paid attention to what I was saying. She acted like she really wanted to be with me. I remember making out in the back seat of a friend of hers car. We didn’t have sex, but not for lack of me trying. I was shy and didn’t want to force an issue.

When I got back on the ship, I felt really bad about what I had done, and decided to come clean with my wife. I sat her down and told her that I had kissed someone. She was upset and we went to marriage counseling. At the time, I would have done anything to save my marriage. We went to counseling, but after awhile my wife said she didn’t want to go anymore. She told me that I wasn’t taking it seriously, when in fact I was really trying.

Then one day she left. I can still remember it. I had gone over to a friend’s house to fix his computer. After that I realized that I had some time to kill, because my wife was out with her girlfriends. I decided to go see a movie. I saw Batman Begins because my wife didn’t want to go anyway. I went straight home and she was sitting on the couch, and she told me that we needed to talk. I honestly don’t remember how the conversation went. The last thing I remember was her saying that we needed to separate for awhile. I said ok and that I would go first. I put on my shoes and walked out the door. I don’t remember many details after that. I remember walking around crying, calling my mom crying, screaming at my wife from the parking lot, and I think I punched a stop sign. I felt so betrayed. I was doing everything I could to keep the marriage together, and she just lay down and quit.

I met my next wife and quickly into our marriage I began to act out again. I would go on any web site that I could find to look at girls pictures. I wanted their attention. I wanted to have sexual conversations with them. I wanted to see if I could get them to say they would have sex with me. Then that wasn’t enough. I had to send out messages saying that I was on deployment and lonely and wanted to talk to people. So they would send me naked pictures and talk dirty to me. Then one of them backfired. She was married to someone in the military and found out that I had been lying to her. I came clean and told her the truth. She lived in Chicago and wanted to meet me. So I lied to my wife and said that I was going to Chicago to visit a friend who was leaving for deployment. She didn’t want me to go, and I made her feel bad by telling her that I’m always working, and never get time to myself.

I drove up there and the girl met me at my hotel room. We had sex and afterwards I felt horrible about it and told her to leave. I was fine until the next night and I was lonely. I called her and we went to a bar. I got drunk and she drove me back. Again we had sex, and again I told her to leave.

I got back home determined never to do this again. The next week the girl called me and told me that she was pregnant and it was mine. I didn’t believe her, but she kept pushing the subject. She threatened to tell my wife and my command what I had done. She told me she wanted to have an abortion and she needed $1000. Now I know what the money really was, but I borrowed it from my dad and sent it to her.

A few weeks later I saw a post from her online and she didn’t get the abortion. She said she couldn’t do it, and I asked about the money. She said that I should be glad she didn’t ask for child support. So a few weeks later she said she was going to fight for child support. I finally broke down and told my wife. She was very upset. I only told her about the one incident and told her it only happened one time and I was drunk. She felt better and forgave me. Then the girl said she had proof of other affairs I had had. I finally broke everything to my wife. It took a long time to get it out and she was very mad. I prayed for her not to leave me, and thankfully she didn’t.

The next Sunday I was at church and looking on my phone and found the SSA website and took the test to find out if I was a sex addict. I found that I answered yes to most of the questions. I was on a phone meeting the first day and have been on one each day since. My sobriety date is June 12^th 2011.